


Thin Line

by SandyQuinn



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, sebastian moran jim moriarty jim/sebastian mormor fanfic spoilers reichenbach fall sherlock BBC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:09:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandyQuinn/pseuds/SandyQuinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim Moriarty might be back from the dead but Sebastian's not breaking out the party hats just yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thin Line

The prison had been the last stop, his rock bottom on the slow, ferocious decline that happened in the course of three years.

Sebastian Moran had been well and truly defeated.

It was laughable, really, that the man who had fought in wars, who had crawled his way out snarling and shoving through the hells unimaginable would be brought down like this by something like loyalty, but for three years Sebastian had hunted, had grieved, viciously, through alcohol and gambling, his mind blurred by the things he refused to say and the actions not taken. Lazy, dark flat eyes and delicate soft laughter haunted him in the dark until he flung his glass of whiskey at it, or took into the night, found some shady little place with a game of poker to play.

It had come to the point where the mistakes he had made had been so clumsy, so pathetic that he really deserved to get caught – to be imprisoned for the murder of some stupid boy with a sly grin like  _ his _  and the murder attempt of Sherlock bloody Holmes.

His face had been flushed with anger then, his vision tinted red and all he’d wanted to do had been to smash that bony, smug face into bits, the alien man Jim had been so bloody fascinated with, as if a long coat and an ability to be a condescending prick were something he held in high regards.

Sebastian could have gotten a long coat if Jim had wanted him to.

There was no present anymore, his whole life, it seemed, in past tense. He barely registered his own uniform and ignored the other inmates who continued to play the game in their own miniscule level, and when left in his cell he sat on his own devices and hated.

It did not come to him as a great surprise, when at the dinner, his vicion suddenly blurred, recognizing the effects of a drug immediately. Someone had made a move. He might not wake up.

Sebastian had stopped fighting. He didn’t really care.

 

*

The world was black and smelled of leather.

This was not hell, as far as Sebastian could tell, although his body ached as if he was in one.

“Sorry about the delay…” a voice drawled, soft, always sounding like it was laughing at a joke no one else got, and Sebastian sat up, feeling like a hand had squeezed around his heart.

He turned around.

Jim looked unwell, thinner- For a moment Sebastian didn’t recognize him, Jim’s face blurred into eyes and a smirk in his mind but those were still the same as they had ever been.

He was even wearing Westwood.

“Didn’t I tell you to trust my plan?”

Sebastian felt the world sway- and he stumbled off the seat of the limo on the floor, in an odd sort of haze. This couldn’t be happening, not now.

“…Right, that’ll be the shock and the drugging.” A clammy hand was patting his cheek. “At least swoon on the chair, okay?”

The touch seemed to awaken something in Sebastian- maybe it was the proof that this was not, quite possibly, a hallucination. Unfortunately, Sebastian’s first reaction was to snarl like a rabid dog in a house full of cats and lunge at Jim.

“You fucking- FUCKING- “ There were no  _words_ , nothing to call Jim that could convey the three years and what Sebastian felt right now. Instead he punched Jim, barely managing not to hold back.

“-tiger-” Jim was speaking but Sebastian couldn’t really hear him for the blood bounding in his ears, over the inhuman roar from the back of his throat, and he punched Jim again.   
How dare he!  _Three years!_

And Jim laughed, like it was nothing, eyes gleaming with fondness and maliciousness, he always laughed with his whole body when he was genuinely happy.   
“Oh, SENTIMENT!” he crooned. “God, I was right, you normal people are-” he paused, licking his cracked lips. “Go on tiger, be ANGRY-”

And that was it, the nickname Sebastian had loathed for being so cheesy that brought his fist to halt, and he stared at Jim, blankly.

He recalled a conversation with John Watson, the only man even close to understand, after he’d been arrested, and what he’d said about Jim. Watson had pitied Sebastian.

Here he was, back in this mess, staring at the man he loathed, far more than anyone else in his life. He’d never felt this before, this fierce mess of emotions tangled together so tightly he couldn’t recognize them anymore. The twist and pull in his heart had to be hate, helplessly bound with loyalty.

“Well, hi up there,” Jim murmured silkily on the car floor. The windows were darkened, so Sebastian had no idea where they were.

“Your plan was to hide for three years?” Sebastian asked flatly.

Jim scoffed, haughtily. “My plan was to convince Sherlock Holmes, utterly and thorougly, that- “ his voice turned simpering, mocking, “poor mad Jim Moriarty just needed to know he wasn’t alone in the world before he could go. Ha! Show ‘em a little crazy and they’ll believe anything, the gullible bastards-”

The same old bullshit. Sebastian pulled away from Jim, suddenly tired again, shifting back on the car seat, and Jim followed, ever so persistant, leaning against his knees cheekily, gazing up at him with false innocence.

“So you did miss me. The freedom wasn’t enough to counteract the pain,” he stated, looking pleased with himself.

“Fuck you,” Sebastian said.

Jim ignored it, of course, taking it like an endearment. His hand slid down to Sebastian’s inner thigh, possessive more than seductive. “I’ve been rather busy keeping under the elder Holmes’ radar- you haven’t touched anyone else, have you tiger?”

Sebastian pulled Jim’s hand away, feeling spiteful. “Yes-” and his courage failed- “I tried to.”

“Did you now?” Jim looked calm and expectant, always a bad sign.

“Yes.”   
“Details, tiger,” Jim made an impatient sound.

“No, I don’t think I will.”

This was new, the sullen disobedience. Jim looked a little discomfited- Sebastian recognized the way he licked his lips when he was bemused.

“I don’t know if it’s occurred to you, colonel, but I’m less house-trained than ever before. You’ll tell me now, or I’ll MAKE you tell me.”

It was so tiresome. Of all the scenarios Sebastian had imagined (less and less as the time passed by) he had forgotten this- this self-centered smugness, the threats, as if Sebastian was just anyone, as if they hadn’t been above the common threats which had been turning into foreplay before Jim’s death…

“Fuck you,” he said.

Suddenly Jim rounded on him, springing from the floor like a cobra, his cool, delicate fingers curling around Sebastian’s throat with an alarming strength.

“You have no IDEA-” he hissed, leaning in, speaking into Sebastian’s ear as Sebastian held still, “Sebastian Moran, there is no one in the world who can think like me and I.  _Despise it._ ”

Sebastian had never been particularly empathetic. His elbow slammed into Jim’s stomach, now, and he wrenched Jim’s hand away. The other man was noticeably weaker now.

“Good for you,” he said, flatly. There was a moment of scuffle, before Jim pulled away, and a short silence fell as they both gathered their composure. Jim sat down on the floor again, and his expression had changed, the previous mirth gone, and Sebastian was viciously pleased. He’d suffered: Let Jim have a taste of it too, even if he’d never really understand.

“Come here,” Jim ordered.

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question. Still wearing your chain, aren’t you?”   
The chain was a thin metal one around Sebastian’s neck, more a sentiment than anything else. It was about loyalty, as always, and Jim’s twisted sense of humour. Sebastian didn’t answer.

“Oh for-” And then Jim slid out a gun, easily, from under the other seat. “If you don’t come down here, I’m shooting your balls off, have you got that?” He clicked the safety off. Sebastian had taught him how to do that, one-handed like that. “Do as you’re fucking told.”

It was the best he could get, and Sebastian slid down from his seat, slowly, still dazed from the drug, settling to face Jim. He watched as Jim reached out, unlocking the chain. The click seemed to echo in the car. Sebastian didn’t like it.

“Just say where you want to get out,” Jim murmured.

“That’s it?” Sebastian asked. His voice had gone hoarse, all of a sudden.

“What were you expecting?” Jim shrugged. ”Game over. Stalemate. There’s nothing left for me to play with - you think I can go back to crime? You think I can go back to the Holmeses? There’s nothing more of me and I only came back to let you free of me.”

There was the strong urge to punch Jim again- just because the man was giving up when Sebastian had kept up, so many years.

”There’s nothing left?”

”I’m just malice held together with spit and crazy, Sebastian Moran.” He closed his eyes. ”I’m probably off to neck myself once I’m done with a bit more astronomy research. Maybe I publish a book and then hang myself. Dunno. ” Jim shifted, stretching his legs, with an unusually sober expression. ”But you deserve fury, not grief. ”

”Great,” Sebastian sneered. ”Maybe I’ll celebrate my new freedom by putting a gun in mouth. Seems to be all the fucking rage these days.” And he paused, just looking at Jim. ”I’m still left. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

Jim looked just- tired. ”Oh don’t, I’d just be depressing now. All that shaking and vomiting and drugs and things. You’d be sick of me in a week. You’re sick of me now, if you’re honest with yourself. Without a purpose, I won’t hold any trait you’d find appealing.”

”…Fine,” Sebastian said, low and calculating. ”But I never thought I’d see the day when Jim Moriarty whines like a little baby and folds down without a fight.”

His words seemed to trigger something, Jim’s voice rising into a tired, hoarse, almost a scream. ”There’s nothing left TO fight - don’t you GET it, Sebastian, he believed it, there was just a trickle of blood and he thought I’d shot myself, he’s an IDIOT, they all are - ** ”  ** and he rised up like an idiot, banging his head on the car ceiling, falling down and cursing.

”You’re making excuses. It’s not like Sherlock Holmes is the only person in the world,” Sebastian said calmly. He was not sure what he was doing, but he needed to do  _something-_ to either let off steam or to bring Jim back, he didn’t know.

”That’s not how it works, Sebastian. Six point six billion people and not a one of them would be a challenge. You know that. What am -” Jim shifted, rubbing his eyes, but at least he’d stopped talking about offing himself. ”What in god’s name am I meant to do?”

”If you can’t figure out anything, you might as well stop calling yourself a genius,” Sebastian said, coldly, without a mercy, and then continued, deliberately. ”You’re just a bloated ego in a big head. And a coward.”

That seemed to do the trick, Jim’s head snapping up, focusing on Sebastian as if he’d smelled blood, his pupils narrowing into pinpricks.

”Say that again, Sebastian,” he said softly.

”You heard me.”

Jim took a breath, and they were silent for a moment, before he spoke, tentatively, softly.

”Maybe I’d like to own Venezuela for a while.”

”That’ll be a start. There’s a whole continent above it, too.”

Jim didn’t seem particularly excited, but, Sebastian figured, it was probably exhaustion. He wondered what the other man had been doing all these years.

”And you still want to stay?” Jim asked, sounding distant now, worn out.

Sebastian grunted. ”I could use a little sun.”

It was like peace after a boxing match, both of them bruised and exhausted, and Jim was curling towards Sebastian now.

Sebastian didn’t let him touch him, not yet. He was still angry.

It’d been a long time since he’d been angry like this, it occurred to him. No one pissed him off quite like Jim did.

He reckoned he could sleep now, too. 

 


End file.
